Jeremiah o meara



MEARA.

ELECTRIC HEATER.

(No Model.)

Patented Mar. 1 3, 1894.

HOC-KAPNINB comuur,

man. 0. c.

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

JEREMIAH OMEARA, OF NEW YORK, N. Y.

ELECTRIC HEATER.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 516,508, dated March 13, 1894.

Application filed December 22, 1892, Serial No. 456,041- (No model.)

T0 to whom it may concern.-

Be it known that I, JEREMIAH OMEARA, a citizen of the United States, residing at. New York, in the county of New York and State of New York, have invented a certain new and useful Improvement in Electric Heaters, of which the following is a full, clear, and exact description.

This invention relates to a portable electric heating device for use in connection with an electric light circuit, or other suitable source of electricity.

The object of the invention, as already indicated, is to produce an electric heater which may be carried from place to place where it is desired to obtain heat.

In practicing my invention, I employ a core which is supplied with a surrounding electric conductor insulated from the core and from external objects, and its coils insulated from one another, and provide the same with acasing having laterally projecting flanges to receive a series of change-tops by means of which the surface for the reception of objects to be cooked or heated may be increased or diminished at pleasure.

The principle of the invention thus having been stated, I will proceed now to describe the best mode in which I have contemplated applying that principle, and then will particularly point out and distinctly claim the part or improvement which I claim as my invention.

In the accompanying drawings, illustrating my invention, in the several figures of which like parts are similarly designated, Figure 1 is an end elevation, showing my invention in connection with a series of changeable tops. Fig. 2 is a cross-section, showing also a hollow core. Fig. 3 is a longitudinal section. Fig. at is a perspective View of the slug herein so-called. Fig. 5 is a cross-section of the slug mutilated to illustrate its constituent elements. Fig. 6 is a perspective view illustrating one application of my invention. Fig. 7 is a diagram illustrating another application thereof.

As illustrating the class of devices to which my invention is most closely related, I refer to my Patent No. 419,282, dated January 14, 1890, in which a crucible of refractory material is supplied with a heating coil of electric conductivity and a surrounding casing, the crucible in that case being primarily designed to contain within itself a body, fluid or solid, from which heat is transmitted. Another illustration may be found in Patent No. l6O,980, granted to another October 13, 1891, in which a solid core of insulating material is supplied with superficial grooves to receive an electric conducting wire, and the whole incased. I design by the present invention to produce an electric heater in which the part that receives the electric conductor may be of any heat-absorbing and radiating substance or material, so as, by convection, to heat a body in or to which it may be applied, as will appear more fully hereinafter.

The core, a, may be of fire-clay, metal or other substance, and may be solid, as in Figs. 1, 3, l, and 5, or tubular, as in Fig. 2. This core is surrounded on fouror more sides with a layer, 1), of asbestus board or paper, or other suitable electric insulator, and I preferan asbestus material because of its incombustibiL ity. On this layer an electric conductor, 0, preferably of German silver wire of say, 19 or 20 gage, is wound, andhavingits terminals projecting from opposite ends of the core. On the conductor is placed an outside layer, 01,

of similar insulating and incombustible material. These details are illustrated particularly in Fig. 5, where the layers and wires are broken out at top forclearness of illustration. As thus prepared, the device is steamed or wetted to soften the layers, and then subjected to pressure whereby the conductor is embedded or sunk into the layers and its coils insulated from one another and the insulation made to adhere to the core and the formation of troublesome air spaces which would interfere with the conduction of heat is avoided. The core may be made of asbestus and have the conductor embedded therein and an outside layer of insulating material applied thereto by pressure or otherwise. The device thus constructed constiive. Such a casing sided box, e, having flanges, j, to engage the flanges, g, of the box,

e, see Fig. 1. The parts of the casing, where they come in contact, may be electrically insulated in any suitable manner. A top proje'cting laterally beyond the slug presents a" surface where varying degrees of heat may be obtained without modifying the current and this is oftentimes a desideratnm in culinary and other operations.

To illustrate the uses to which my invention' may be put, I have shown in Figs. 1 and 2, the incased device as capable of receiving an article to be cooked, and this article may be laid upon the top or placed in a vessel set upon the top. In Fig. 6, the heater, incased or not, may be connected with an electrolier, k, in any convenient removable manner, with or without fusible cut-outs, Z, in the circuit, and suspended over a wash-basin. If it be desired to heat water in the basin, the heateris submerged in the water and the current turned on, and the conductor, 0, acting as a resistance, heats the slug, which in turn heats the water to any desired degree. An increase of the heating surface will be obtained by the tubular or hollow slug shown in Fig. 2. To heat a bath-tub of water, three, more or less, of the slugs 0r heaters may be connected in circuit, as 'in Fig. 7, and connected with a source of electricity and submerged in the water in the tub.

A further use to which my slugs or incased heaters may be applied is in lining ovens or stoves and other heaters.

Experiments have demonstrated that by applying an electric current exteriorly to a vessel containing, say, a gallon and a half of water, it will require about an hour and a half of time to raise the water to the boiling point, while the same quantity of water may be heated to the boiling point by means of my slugs or heaters submerged in the water, in about fifteen minutes. The saving in time is accompanied also by a. saving in expense, and hence the superiority of the submerged heaters.

The voltages in common use are fifty, seventy, one hundred and ten and two hundred and twenty. Electric apparatus are designed in accordance with local voltage, and necessarily so, for if an apparatus designed for a fifty volt current were applied on a one hundred and ten volt circuit the apparatus would be burned out. This difficulty could be overcome by increasing the length of wire in the apparatus, and this I accomplish by connecting together a series of the lower voltage apparatus, for example, as indicated in Fig. 7.

What I claim is In an electric heater,a core supplied with a surrounding electric conductorinsnlated from said core and from external objects, and its coils insulated from one another, combined with a casing having laterally projecting flanges, and a series of change-tops applicable to such flanges, atpleasure, to increase or diminish the top-surface, substantially as described.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand this 20th day of December, A. D. 1892.

JEREMIAH OMEARA.

Witnesses:

THos. NAST, J r., GEO. H. PETIT. 

